FIDDLING WITH THE RIDDLE OF TYBALT
“Stop looking at me,” Juliet said.
“You stop looking at me!” Romeo snapped back.
“You were looking at me first.”
“You’re in front of me! It’s not my fault you’re in the way of my eyes.”
“Maybe I should’ve turned you in when I had the chance. You’d be in the Capulet dungeons right now being tortured.”
“I tried the Instead-Stix. After that, torture sounds pleasant.”
Becca sighed, and next to her she heard Sam grind his teeth.
Juliet and Romeo had bickered as they passed the bakery.
They had fumed as they passed the farmers’ market.
They had been quarreling, squabbling, and arguing up and down the dark streets of Verona, and Becca was nearing the end of her Instead-Stix rope.
“Are we there yet?” she asked Mercutio.
“I told you, we’ll get there when we get there!”
Becca blinked. It seemed even good-natured Mercutio was getting annoyed by the feuding Miss Capulet and Mr. Montague. They couldn’t get to the apothecary soon enough!
“What is an apothecary, anyway?” Becca asked.
Mercutio looked at her in surprise. “You really are from far away.”
“Something like that,” Sam said.
“Apothecaries learn about different plants and herbs and such things,” Mercutio said, sniffling a bit. “They mix them to make medicines and potions, including perfumes.” He sniffed again. “I may need some medicine myself. My nose is still itching from the last time I was around your pup.”
THHHHHBBBBBTTTTT!
Becca turned in time to see Romeo make a raspberry at Juliet, who immediately crossed her eyes at him. Mercutio picked up the pace.
After two more lefts and then a right, Becca was about to tell Juliet to stop repeating everything Romeo said, when Mercutio finally came to a halt. “We’re here!”
The apothecary shop looked like a witch’s cottage—or what Becca would have imagined a witch’s cottage to look like. The window was so filled with bottles and flasks in all different colors and sizes that she couldn’t see anything in the shop itself. There was no way of telling if Tybalt and his hostage were in there or not.
“Tybalt’s been renting it for cheap because our apothecary’s out of town for a while,” Juliet whispered. “Apparently some big disaster stank up a castle all the way in Denmark, and they wrote to people all over Europe to ask for help.”
“It’s quiet,” Mercutio said, peering in. “I don’t see any light inside.”
Becca in no way wanted to enter the shop. Its eerie silence reminded her of a tomb. More specifically, the Egyptian tomb where Mal and Cal had their very first encounter with a mummy. Mal and Cal had bravely ventured through, though. Becca gritted her teeth. If her fictional characters could withstand the silence and dark, then so could she!
“Is there a back door?” Sam asked.
“Pretty sure it’s just this one,” Juliet said.
Then from inside there came a faint whine. It could have just been the wind … but it also could have been a dog in trouble.
Becca stepped closer to the window. “Did you hear that?”
“I heard something,” Sam said, and Romeo nodded.
As carefully as she could, Becca pressed her ear against the wooden door. There it was again—a low whimper.
Becca jerked her head away. “Rufus is in there!”
“We have to be smart about this,” Mercutio warned. “We can’t just open the door. Tybalt might be trying to lure us into a trap.”
“You’re right.” Becca turned to Juliet. “You’re his cousin, right? Maybe you can reason with him. Call him out here so we can separate him from Rufus.”
Juliet had finally stopped making faces at Romeo and now looked very serious. “I can try,” she said doubtfully. “But Tybalt is not known for being reasonable.”
Romeo snorted. “I’ll say.”
“Stop agreeing with me!”
“Fight later,” Becca said, snapping her fingers. “Rescue now.”
“I’ll try,” Juliet said again. She knocked on the door. “Tybalt? Cousin? Are you in there?”
No answer.
“I think I know how to get back at the Montagues,” she said in a deeper voice. “We can beat them once and for all!”
But if Tybalt was inside, he wasn’t convinced. The shop remained as quiet and still as school on a snow day.
“Any other ideas?” Romeo asked.
Luckily, Becca had one.
“I do?” Becca said.
“She does?” said Sam.
Juliet and Mercutio looked at them quizzically.
“We’ll explain later,” Sam said.
“Shh,” Becca said. “I have an idea?”
You’re supposed to. That’s how the story should work. Has it not come to you yet?
“I … don’t think so.”
Okay. Here’s a hint: Achoo!
“Gesundheit.”
No. That was the hint.
Becca thought for a moment. She looked at Mercutio, who was still standing at the window.
“Ohhhhhh,” she said. A story started to come to her—and an idea of what a hero might do. “Do any of you think you can get that window open? Quietly?” Becca asked in a whisper.
Juliet stepped forward. “Having the nurse I do has made me an expert in all things sneaky,” she said. She pulled a brass hairpin shaped like a shining sun from her head. Next she found a tiny gap in the window and slowly worked it open.
“Sam, do you have any of Mrs. W.’s cookies left?”
“Just one.” He reached into his pocket and handed it to her.
“Thanks,” she said. “Mercutio, face the window, please.”
“As you command!”
“Hold still,” she said and placed the cookie on the sill. She cleared her throat and half whispered, “Rufus, treat!”
Mercutio’s eyes widened. “But … I’m allergi—ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO!”
A thunderstorm of spit and snot geysered out of his mouth and nose and into the apothecary shop.
“Why’s it raining?” came Tybalt’s voice from inside. “Is there a leak? Why’s it so sticky and … EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWW!”
Becca listened in satisfaction as Tybalt—who bathed in flowery water every day, who tweezed his mustache into shape twice a week, who wore more cologne than most royal families—came tearing out the door, frantically swiping snot off himself with one hand while gripping a rope in the other.
And at the end of that rope was the very tied-up, very slobbery Rufus.
